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Saturday, 12 July 2014

Enchanted Orb with Nicole Murphy

Writers find inspiration in the strangest and most interesting ways. Today we have multi-genre writing author, Nicole Murphy sharing with us the inspiration behind her latest flood of books.

Over to Nicole...

I’m in the middle of a busy twelve months. Four books coming out. FOUR! Since one of them is a collection of four novellas, that’s actually a total of seven stories. And while the novellas and the three other books are linked, they’re also all very different. So what’s my inspiration for them all?

Release is the title of the collection of paranormal erotic novellas. Not only is it a great name for a collection of erotica, it also in one word sums up the overarching story. Four spirits, trying to find release from the eternal punishment they’ve been given for their earthly sins. The idea to link them all together came during the writing process. The first novella was written a couple of years ago, and I was having problems selling it. Then came the idea for a second novella, that would also be about a spirit. From there, I developed all four spirits – the spirit of the house, the spirit of the beach, the spirit of the field and the spirit of the office – and started to write the other three stories. As they developed, it was the last story – the spirit of the office – that made me realise how linked the four stories were.

The final story is really different to the other three, in that this time it isn’t the spirit who needs to help and heal a woman, but the woman who needs to help and heal the spirit. I had to think about why the spirit was in this situation, who he was, and why it had to happen. From that came the link that I think took the collection from four erotica stories to something really open and honest and heartfelt.

The other three books are a science fiction romance trilogy, called the Jorda series. The inspiration for the first book, Loving the Prince, goes back 30 years. Yep, count em – thirty. I was in Year 9 at high school when I first conceived of Cassandra, her family, her love interest and her world. The inspiration – one Princess Leia Organa, from Star Wars. I wanted to write a kick-arse space princess too.

Cassandra’s changed a lot over the years, and so has the story. The big issue I had was finding the right story for her – I started and discarded a lot over the year. She started out almost Luke Skywalker-ish in her desire to dash in and have an adventure. She still has that tendency, but now it’s the aspect that gets her into trouble and it’s up to her lover, Kernan, to try and keep her chilled, before she destroys everything.

I’d always thought that Cassandra’s twin sister, Diana, would be the heroine of her own story, but the real moment Diana came to life was when I was at some markets at the end of last year, and someone was selling this beautiful hand-made jewelry. They’d learnt to smelt and mould silver and the works were unique and fascinating and it came to me – that’s what Diana needed. A passion that would drive her as much as Cassandra’s dedication to work and family drove her, and that passion would be jewelry making.

The third book in the trilogy will conclude the storyline begun in Cassandra’s book, and made horrible and heinous in Diana’s. It features a heroine that up until January 6 this year was never going to be the heroine of a book. But then I was talking to my publisher, and she said ‘You know whose book would be great? Plissa’s…’ and I said ‘Ooooh, interesting’ and my fate was sealed.

Plissa Waltric was supposed to be nothing but Cassandra’s nemesis. In fact, originally she was a he – Grant Waltric. Honestly I just changed the name, the ‘he’s to ‘she’s, polished a few things and Grant became Plissa. But my publisher was right – she was fascinating, and I loved the challenge of making someone like her, who comes across in the first book as just awful, as the heroine in a romance.

So that was my inspiration for the last book – the challenge of making it work. And it’s turning out to be a hard book to write, but an interesting one and I’m having a ball.

So there you have it – inspiration can come from all directions. It can come from your writing itself. It can come from your favourite movie. It can come from a visit to the markets (which also gives you the PERFECT excuse to go shopping often – it’s for research, darling) and it can come from a challenge. You never know when inspiration will strike, and that’s what makes this job so much fun!

Nicole Murphy is the author of the Dream of Asarlai trilogy, published by HarperCollins (re-launched as an electronic omnibus in April), and a couple dozen speculative fiction shorts. Her science fiction romance trilogy, the Jorda series, is being published by Escape Publishing. The first book, Loving the Prince, releases August 1. As Elizabeth Dunk she’s published contemporary romance with Escape Publishing and in July released a collection of paranormal erotic novellas, Release, also with Escape.